Voya Financial Hires Two Leaders for Key Operations and Service Roles

WINDSOR, Conn., Aug. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), announced two key hires today.

Miles Edwards will serve as senior vice president and lead Operations for its Retirement business, effective immediately. In this position, Edwards will be responsible for all operations functions that support Voya's Corporate and Tax-Exempt Markets retirement plan segments, as well as its retail phone-based Investor Channel and the Voya Financial Advisors broker-dealer operations. 

Prior to Voya, Edwards served as senior vice president of the FASCore operations of Great-West Financial (doing business as Empower Retirement), leading all administration and operations services for that business.  During his 20 years with Empower, Edwards oversaw participant call center activities, plan sponsor account managers, transaction processing, plan implementation, plan compliance, financial control and institutional relationship management. Edwards was also responsible for multiple field office and defined benefit business operations sites across the U.S. and Canada. Prior to joining Great-West Financial, Edwards was a senior manager at Deloitte for 12 years, where he was responsible for financial audits of companies in various industries.  He holds a bachelor's degree from Bates College and a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University.

Voya also announced Michele White will join the company as senior vice president and leader of its Enterprise Contact Centers, effective Sept. 6. In this role, White will be responsible for strategy, processes and performance management across all customer service access points. 

White comes to Voya from MassMutual Financial Group, where she most recently served as vice president of Client Services and senior leader of its West Coast operations. In this role, she managed an organization of more than 500 customer associates, achieving favorable client outcomes, while meeting all service standards and business objectives. White's experience spans call centers, websites, interactive voice response (IVR), correspondence, billing, statements and tax reporting. She previously held various leadership roles across MassMutual's customer service, operations, program management and information technology organizations. White has a Bachelor of Business Administration from Charter Oak State College and a Master of Business Administration from Western New England University.

Both Edwards and White will be based in Voya's Windsor, Connecticut, office and report to Nan Ferrara, senior managing director of Operations for Voya Financial. They will also serve as leadership team members in the Retirement business managed by Charlie Nelson, CEO of Voya Retirement.

"Providing outstanding customer service and promoting a culture of operations excellence are two priorities in our vision to become America's Retirement Company," noted Ferrara. "Miles has a proven track record of building strong collaborative teams, streamlining systems and removing complexity. Michele's impressive background reflects a results-oriented focus on the customer, and a passion for cultivating talent and embracing the principles of Continuous Improvement. We're thrilled to have these two highly talented leaders join Voya, and we look forward to their guidance and contributions as we refine the way we operate and foster a world-class end-to-end customer experience."

"Having Miles on our team is an incredible asset to Voya. He is a true operations leader with extensive talent in recordkeeping administration and mass plan conversions. He brings years of experience supporting large and mega plan platforms — both corporate and government — and also knows how to drive efficiency in the smaller end of the plan market," said Nelson. "Similarly, Michele's impressive industry background and strong sense of customer service will help to enhance the experience we provide to millions of Voya workplace and retail retirement customers. Both Miles and Michele will be key partners to help Voya in the next phase of growth." 

Voya, a leading provider of retirement products and services in the U.S., serves more than 47,000 plan sponsor clients and nearly 4.5 million individual retirement plan investors.¹ Voya also operates a leading broker-dealer that serves a growing retail market.

1. Last reported on June 30, 2016.

Media Contact:
Joe Loparco 
Voya Financial 
Office:  (860) 580-2677  
Cell: (860) 462-6525  
Joseph.Loparco@voya.com

Investor Contact:
Darin Arita
212-309-8999
IR@voya.com

About Voya Financial^®
Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings — to get ready to retire better. Serving the financial needs of approximately 13 million individual and institutional customers in the United States, Voya is a Fortune 500 company that had $11 billion in revenue in 2015. The company had $466 billion in total assets under management and administration as of June 30, 2016. With a clear mission to make a secure financial future possible — one person, one family, one institution at a time — Voya's vision is to be America's Retirement Company™. The company is equally committed to conducting business in a way that is socially, environmentally, economically and ethically responsible — Voya has been recognized as one of the 2016 World's Most Ethical Companies^® by the Ethisphere Institute, and as one of the Top Green Companies in the U.S., by Newsweek magazine. For more information, visit voya.com. Follow Voya Financial on Facebook and Twitter @Voya.

SOURCE Voya Financial, Inc.